Ann Chapman

Dr. Ann Chapman is a consultant in Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital in Sheffield. Her lecture here is of great interest to those of us that work in primary care, principally because of the large population of patients with latent TB that are present in our communities. Especially in those communities that have a large immigrant population and amongst specific at-risk groups.

Ann talks about how active TB is diagnosed and how this differs from the diagnosis of latent TB, and discusses the NICE recommendations for screening for latent TB.

By the 1970s it had almost been eradicated, but in the last 30 years there has been a major re-emergence of the disease, which is airborne and spread through close contact with others. TB rates in Britain have increased rapidly and now stand at around 9,000 cases – the highest level since the 1970s. Between 2001 and 2010 more than 4,800 people died of TB in the UK. The Health Protection Agency has forecast that if the rise in TB continues at its current rate then by 2015 Britain will have more new cases each year than in the whole of the US. The interferon gamma release assay (IGRA) is a newer type of blood test for TB that is becoming more widely available.